Decision Detox: How Making Less Choices Gives You More Freedom

Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. Now, one of the things that I love is watching documentaries, especially ones that get me all kinds of fired up. Now, this past summer I did a double feature of That Sugar Film and Fed Up. Now, little warning here, these are not the kind of movies that you should watch with your hand in a bowl full of popcorn and peanut M&Ms.

Anyway, right after I watched them I was immediately inspired to go on a detox. So I remembered that my friend Mark Hyman had recently written a book called The 10-Day Detox Diet. So I went on my little iPad, I went on my Kindle, I downloaded it, and I said to Josh, “We are doing this.” And for the next 10 days there was no dairy, no gluten, no grain, no alcohol, no caffeine, and, of course, no refined sugar. Josh was as into this idea as I was and off we went.

Now, I was excited to try this because for years I had read about the negatives of gluten and dairy and sugar, etcetera. But I’d never actually removed all of those at once for an extended period of time, and I wanted to see what the impact would be on my mental clarity, on my performance, my sleep, my weight, my bloating. You know, all that good stuff.

What I didn’t expect though was how much easier the rest of my life would get because I no longer had all these little decision battles in my head at every meal about what I should eat.

You know the drill. It’s just constant decision battles. And it wasn’t until all those options were removed that I realized how much time and mental energy they were stealing from my life. You know, at first I thought this detox was gonna be so hard, especially because we were doing it in the summer when we’d go to our friend’s houses and they’d do these gorgeous dinners where everybody brings cheese and they bring pie from the farmstand and organic ice cream. I thought I was gonna feel like I was really missing out. But actually, it was pretty easy. I had no problem saying, “No thanks. I’m totally good,” because those choices simply weren’t an option for me.

So not only did I have a ton more physical energy thanks to how I was eating, but I also had a lot more mental energy because I had a lot less decisions to make. And, yes, for you nutrition nerds, I do realize that the way I was eating was affecting my brain and my ability to think clearly. But I’m just focusing right now on how consciously relieved I was by not having all these little decisions to make at every single meal.

The reason why is because I was no longer suffering from decision fatigue, which is an actual thing according to some scientists. The idea is that every single day you have a finite supply of decision making energy, and every single time you make a decision, you resist temptation, or you exert some self control, you’re actually draining the tank. Now, by the end of the day most of us are totally cranky and petering out because we’ve run out of decision making gas.

So how does this apply to you? Well, I want you to think about where in your life you might be giving yourself a little too many options on a daily basis. Maybe it’s food like it was for me or maybe it’s something else. Where are little decision battles depleting you? So I want you to think about your day from the moment you wake up until you go to bed.

For instance, should you jump out of bed or hit snooze? Should you meditate, exercise, journal, or skip it and read the paper? Should you work on your writing project first, bang out emails, or get on social media? And if it is social media, should you focus on Twitter, Periscope, Facebook, or Instagram?

Really walk through your entire day and identify all the places that you might be getting tripped up by too many choices. Then you might wanna put yourself on a 10 day decision detox. Maybe make a little 10 day rule like no screen time after 8pm or no work other than my writing project before noon.

The idea here is to greatly reduce or limit your options in an area that’s tripping you up. And if you want a little mantra to help you stay on track, remember this tweetable.

“Limited choices in your day can lead to limitless freedom in your life.”

Now I would love to hear from you. What aspect of your life is in most need of a decision detox? Where might you get an incredible boost of mental and emotional energy by reducing your choices? So you can design your own little 10 day decision detox and tell me all about it in the comments below.

Now, as always, the richest and best discussions happen after the episode over at MarieForleo.com, and we have a great time over there. So go there and leave a comment now.

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Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams, because the world needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll catch you next time on MarieTV.

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